This is not an official news source for CineForm or GoPro product releases, just some bits and pieces of stuff I happen to be working on. My work and hobbies are pretty much the same thing. -- David Newman

Thursday, May 26, 2011

We are starting to see a range of cool new 3D consumer cameras, like the Sony HDR-TD10 and the JVC GS-TD1, both great companion units to a GoPro 3D Hero setup. ;) The new Sony and JVC cameras record to a single 3D file in a Multiview Video Coding format (MVC) which is very cool, yet it currently has limited video editing compatibility. MVC simplifies the capture down to one video file for 3D, yet doesn't compromise resolution, like side-by-side 3D formats which squish the left and right view it one HD frame. MVC stores two full frames of 1080 HD, not that unlike CineForm's own 3D format. For editing only Sony Vegas 10.0d has any native MVC support and currently only for the Sony camera.

CineForm is planning conversion utilities for all common 3D sources, yet today there aren't any license-able MVC decoders available (we expect this to change soon.) At CineForm we develop our own compression technologies, yet license the standard based ones like MPEG2, H.264 and soon MVC. So what does a new MVC camera owner do in the meantime?

The developer of StereoPlayer has a solution suitable called MVC to AVI Converter for Windows, and it does exactly as it name suggests. While it is not a fancy utility, it has all the needed functionality -- you can select the "CineForm HD Encoder-2" with any CineForm Neo or Neo3D install, and even set the compression level and frame format (to match your source.)

The output will be a left and right CineForm AVI files that can be quickly Muxed into a new CineForm 3D using FirstLight. While this is one more step, the muxing process is completely losses and very fast, as is simply adds left and right eye views into a new file without re-compression. With your new CineForm 3D AVI or MOV file, you can now edit 3D within common video editing tools, adding 3D corrections with key-framing within FirstLight.

Please send me your youtube.com 3D link in the comments with you first successful use of this technique.

44 comments:

I'm probably the first person to try Peter Wimmer's MVC to AVI utility. It's my editing dream come true. There's a problem, though. Using the Cineform HD-2 compressor, the conversion is lightning fast, but the field order of the left/right files are both reversed. That creates jittery motion. Here are an original JVC mp4 stereo file and the left eye view as extracted by Peter's utility (form my Dropbox account).

The field order is not wrong, the decoder simple not reporting it to media player, it doesn't cause any other issues, all your exports will be fine. The was a reason for this media player glitch, but it escapes me at the moment.

We support both Video for Windows and DIrectShow based compression, so that explains two entries. DirectShow is newer, use that. Encode vs Encoder-2 DShow filters are similar although 2 is threaded and therefore faster on multicore systems.

Hmmm. I'm not sure I understand what's going on or what to do about it. Windows 7 Media Player plays the fields reversed. Adobe Premiere CS5 plays the fields reversed and doesn't export normally unless I reverse the field order in their software. Also, Premiere seems to discard every other field when I do a progressive export. I get half res output - and seriously compromised image quality.

Does Neo support the interlaced format of the new JVC and Sony camcorders? I'm struggling to figure out what's going on, and I don't know how to fix it.

I can confirm the speed of the conversion with HD-2. On my Core i5, I get faster than real time extraction and encoding of the two streams. I expect that to improve if I move all this to my main editing computer, which is a Core i7 with hyperthreading.

The conversion also look fantastic. I'm just concerned about the reversed field order and how to fix it, and the apparent discarding of a full field when I export from Premiere.

Joe, I have download your clip, you have made an error. When you set up the encoder (Encoder-2) you get select progressive or not (interlaced) under "Configure...". You have selected progressive, messing you up from that point on. Leave "Single Frame Picture Group" checked, but "Progressive Frame Encoding" unchecked for interlaced sources. In any case we don't de-interlace for MediaPlayer, so you are going to see fields in that tool (yes they are unpleasant) but NLEs will now behave correctly.

As I've already pointed out MediaPlayer will look bad. I've tested correctly converted JVC-3D footage in Premiere and it is working fine. The fields have never been reversed, you can use interpret footage in Premiere to even correct your earlier error. If you want the de-interlaced preview mode use 1080i desktop, as the CineForm RT sequence preset defaults to both fields shown. 95% of our customers are progressive users, we default for that experience. For support questions, please use http://support.cineform.com

Hello, I have been converting footage from the new Sony TD10 on a PC and then Muxing on a Mac. The only thing is that I find myself having to remaster the avi files TWICE on the Mac. This is the only method that I have found were I can mux the two eyes and then Edit them in Final Cut 7. Do you have any idea why or any suggestion to make the process faster?

I upgraded to Neo and started using MVCtoAVI. Below is a ROUGH edit of footage shot with the JVC TD1. I used MVCtoAVI to split the filss, then muxed them in FirstLight. I edited those 3D files in Sony Vegas 10d and output to a 3D Blu-ray iso file. I've tested it in both Sony and Panasonic 3D Blu-ray players, and on a JVC RS40 projector, Samsung C8000 3D plasma and Samsung 3D LCD.

There are two clips in this iso that will never be in the final edit. One is of a girl walking right to left with a baby stroller. She exhibits the same stuttering appearance I see in the file splits but not in the original JVC mp4 file. This file exhibits the problem throughout my production process. I still need to talk to Cineform tech support about it. The other bad clip is a Blackbird (Steadicam). It's there only to show the potential of the device (once the user gets the hang of it :D). I'm sharing 3D editing ideas with others over at AVSForum.

I'm very happy with MVCtoAVI. If only I can get the "stuttering" issue resolved, it will be a perfect solution for me - along with Neo.

MVCtoAVI is based on CoreAVC we believe. We are consider that along with other native MVC decoders coming to market. It shouldn't be too long before conversion is a one step process to a stereo CineForm file.

I have the Sony TD10 and edit with Final Cut Pro. The following link discusses my workflow (as well as my trials and tribulations). I used MVC to AVI on Windows running on Bootcamp, but converted them to uncompressed AVI's. I'm gonna try to go to Cineform and see if that is better. Then I take the uncompressed to the Mac side and convert them to ProRes files with Compressor. Then use Dashwood's plugin in FCP to edit. The process is agonizing and slow. I can't wait till I can go from MVC to .mov in one step. I'm hoping Cineform will do this.

Any progress on this conversion front? Just checking. If it doesn't look like it's going to happen in the next few months, I will hold off, as I want to buy the JVC camera, but know I would want to kill myself with all the additional transcoding. Thanks so much for your valuable time.

I'm experimenting with the Sony TD-10 camera for an underwater show where a very small form factor is of the essence. I had high hopes for this camera, but, after using the MVC to AVI utility, I'm getting a lot of jittery motion on the resulting Cineform files. What gives?- What settings should I use on the Cienform encoder? This camera records to 60i in 3D, does that mean, 60i for each frame, or 30i per frame?- Dies this mean there's no way to obtain a progressive frame out the camera, or de-interlacing is the only option? I would like to work on a 24P or at least 30p timeline, so what's the best way to get there with the limited settings on the Cineform encoder available through MVC 2 AVI? How can I eliminate this jittery motions I get from pans and tilts? If this is unavoidable, then this camera is out of the question for me.

I'll look into the NX3D1 option, pity its more than twice the cost for basically just the added functionality of 24p and some audio functions I will not use. Anyway, it will have to do. As a side note, I see on the B&H specs sheet that Cineform should have its own MVC conversion utility soon. Is this the case, and if so, when-abouts?

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Got the NX3D1, and while I build underwater housings for it, I was wondering about the convergence setting of the camera. I know the interocular is fixed at 31mm, which is very good for close shots, ironically the weak spot of side by side rigs, but not so good for anything over 20 ft away from the camera. Do you know if using this convergence adjustment in any way degrades the image quality of the images? I read that what's shifted are the pixels used for the 3D effect within the image, but this does not tell me much. I would love to be able to widen my convergence a bit but not at the cost of distortion or image quality loss. Any thoughts on this?

i have a problem... when i try to use cineform hd encoder it fails to load. i can choose from a long range of codecs, canopus, uncompressed, dv but none cineform codec. how can i solve this, please.Thank you very much.

You no longer need to use MVCtoAVI as MVC support is now included in our newly released CineForm Studio Premium. But question is one for support@cineform.com, likely you haven't got something installed or activated correctly.

Hi David,you should try Fujifilm camera just one time, Fujifilm cameras have best 3D camera. I hope you will be satisfied with fujifilm. experience the photo and videos in real 3D with Fujifilm 3D image products, Finepix 3D Digital Camera and 3D Image Viewer.